FOXBORO, Mass. – For night three of Kenny Chesney’s Sun Goes Down 2024 Tour at Gillette Stadium, the eight-time Entertainer of the Year played it straight-up, delivering a sweeping set that spanned his career. Now something of making summer official tradition, Chesney’s 22nd, 23rd and 24th shows at the home of the New England Patriots since 2005 – with three years off during the COVID shutdown – were wide-open love letters to how people live, finding the best outlook on any given situation, love, life and joy. And Chesney’s final show delivered on those notions with a lot of heart and passion.
“The last night is always so hard,” Chesney said, “because you’ve shared so many things over a few months… You get close, you have fun, and you live. But this year, this tour has been even more so because every single person who came to see us brought just as much heart to the shows as my road family and I brought. It was something you could feel everywhere we went.”
That palpability was present on “Boston,” performed with the lights all the way up. The love song to a free spirit tending bar who chased her dream, the song represents the soul of so many in New England, and Chesney let the audience take the final chorus, nodding approvingly as No Shoes Nation sang their own song with real embrace. The unprecedented third night’s sold-out crowd also took “Boys of Fall” as their own – singing the last chorus on their own – while film of Tom Brady, the various Patriots and coaches flashed on the screens around the stage.
Uncle Kracker received his biggest response of the three nights, bouncing down the T for the six-week No. 1 “When the Sun Goes Down,” and the audience raised their voices to “Drift Away,” it was a reprise of Kracker’s solo “Follow Me” that again had the audience singing at the top of their lungs. Clearly a favorite, it was a moment of fellowship that delighted the crowd.
“It really felt like No Shoes Nation came to sing,” Chesney marveled. “These songs were their life, too, and they were going to sing them back to us. I felt like I was seeing – and hearing – everything we played in another dimension because I could hear all those lives in their voices.”
Megan Moroney, whose pranks have “owned” the weekend, tamed it down to wearing a “Best Summer Ever” on the front t-shirt, with “We <3 Kenny” on the back. Her cavorting during “All The Pretty Girls” and “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” matches Chesney’s own high-energy performance. But it was her own “Am I Okay” that saw the crowd finding a whole new level.
“Watching Megan really come into her power this summer has been one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time,” Chesney allowed. “She is a triple threat writer/singer/performer – and she’s found the space she wants to work from. Mark my words: she’s here for the duration.”
Dropping a free-form take on Steve Miller’s “The Joker” into Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” Chesney loosened up the playlist and worked from a place of maximum positivity. “Young,” “American Kids,” “Save It For A Rainy Day,” and “Get Along” delivered a gospel of seeking joy.
Presented by Blue Chair Bay Rum, the Sun Goes Down Tour more than delivered.
“…because everything gets hotter when the sun goes down…”
